Letters to the editor for November 30, 2012

I am the breeder of Sid, the dog subject of your 11-27-12 article; the very same senselessly shot during Thanksgiving weekend. And while I am outraged over the incident I am also concerned about such depravity slithering in our midst. Because it is no exaggeration to state one debauched enough to harm a benign dog in the manner that Sid met his end, poses a significant public threat.

Since mid 70’s the FBI, American Psychiatric Association and dozens of criminological studies sustain animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people, than the rest of us. And as recent as 2002 the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law published findings supporting perpetrators of animal abuse are very often directly associated with child molestation — classic sociopathic behavior. It is then no wonder why California Penal Code No. 597 classifies domestic dog shooting, a felony.

Thus it’s one thing when family pets, especially those with a long history of people-friendliness, are lost to accident or nature. It is quite another when they are callously dispatched cruelly, giving our community reason to consider what the next object of abuse might be. Today canid blood; tomorrow, who can say with certainty?